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JULY, 1891.)
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
243
Antigonus and Alexander. It may be asked, whether it was not through Antiochus as an intermediary, that Piyadasi had knowledge of the other kings whom he enumerates. The time available for the journey of his emissaries, if they were specially despatched by him, - say about a year and a half. — would sarcely allow them to push so far forward into Hellenic soil, and just about the period to which our edict relates, between 260 and 258, Antiochus II. found himself, by his designs upon Thracia and by his struggles in the Mediterranean, brought into relations more or less anfriendly, but certainly very active, with the sovereigns of Egypt and Cyrene, and of Macedonia and Epirus. 39
Wbatever may have been the details, one point appears to be reasonably incontestible, - that the thirteenth year from the coronation of Piyadasi corresponds nearly to the year 258 or 257 B. C., and that consequently the coronation occurred in 289 or 270. This date, and the correlative dates of the conversions of Asoka, of his inscriptions, &c., are the only ones which appear to me to be legitimately deducible from our texts; for the alleged date in the era of the nirvana at Sahasaram-Rûpnith rests, in my opinion, on an illusion and a mistake.
To sum up: - It is now possible to assign to Piyadasi, with sufficient precision his chronological position. That is one of the principal reasons for the great interest which attaches to these monuments; but it is more especially to the history of religious ideas that they appear to promise valuable items of information. It is strange that documents, relatively of such extent, and in which the religious sentiment is so overruling, should not have long ago cut short all hesitation regarding the inspiration by which their author was guided. Yet not only has Wilsont ventured to dispute the Buddhist faith of Piyadasi, not only, in much later times, has Mr. Edward Thomas l endeavoured to prove that, before becoming a follower of Buddhism, Piyadasi had been subject to other convictions, that he had at first adhered to Jainism, - (these attempts partly rest on grossly inaccurate interpretations and are moreover anterior to the last discoveries at Khálsi, Sabasaram and Rapnåth, which have imported new elements into the debate), - but, which is much more serious, Dr. Kern has also, in spite of his greatly superior knowledge of the documents, and subsequently to the public cation of the last edicts, appeared to be dangerously near to allying himself to the opinion of Mr. Thomas. He has at any rate sought to prove, in the doctrinal evolutions of Piyadasi gradations, the last expression of which, in the Salasarâm edict, manifests, according to him, all the symptoms of a veritable madness. Here again the suggestion results from certain incomplete interpretations; for Dr. Kern too hurriedly adopted the first translation proposed for the text of Sahasaram-Räpnath. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that our monuments suggest a religious, as well as a chronological, question regarding which it is necessary for us to be explicit. This question appears to me to be susceptible of categorical answers.
I can only, in several respects, refer to the results arrived at in the foregoing, and to what I have already attempted to demonstrate, especially with regard to the chronological classification of our inscriptions. It is clear and uncontested that, at the period to which the edict of Bhabra refers, Piyadasi is a declared Buddhist. Unfortunately, as we have seen, this edict bears no expressed date, and contains in it no element of information, which would allow us to date it with certainty. It is nevertheless of essential importance for deciding the question with which we are now dealing. It is evident that, until reasons — positive objections — are discovered to the contrary, & piece of evidence so precise should be accepted. It would be conclusive even if the absence, elsewhere alleged, of documents, of categorical statements, awoke suspicion, Bat there is no room for even this uncertainty.
Oar inscriptions divide themselves into two principal gronps, the first, including the Edict of Sabasaram, and the fourteen edicte, belongs to the thirteenth or the fourteenth year; the second, consisting of the columnar edicts, refers to the twenty-seventh or the twenty-eighth. We
Droyson, Gesch, des Hellenisme, IT, p. 814 and 1. # JR. A. 3. N. 8., IX. p. 186 and f.
+ J. R. A. 8. p. 288 and
Kern, loc. cit. p. 809 note.
